Trump threatens 'fight' with holdouts over Obamacare...

2of3Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, talks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2015, following a closed-door meeting with House Republicans to counter President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration. Gohmert is a member of the Freedom Caucus.Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, STF

3of3Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, speaks during a news conference about jobs in the Port of Houston at the Bostco Storage and Terminal Services on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016, in Houston. Weber is a member of the Freedom Caucus.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump showed his mounting frustration with the Republicans' stalled Obamacare repeal effort Thursday, threatening to "fight" recalcitrant members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, including a pair in Texas.

The fighting words came on Twitter, where Trump has been targeting holdouts since last week's decision to pull Republican replacement legislation from the House floor - his first legislative failure, which came for want of Republican votes when the Democratic minority stood uniformly in opposition: "The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

It was Trump's third tweet attacking the Freedom Caucus, including one earlier this week: "The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!"

Until last Friday's failed vote, the Freedom Caucus counted five members from Texas. Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe of Humble broke with the group, saying it would allow him to be a "more effective" lawmaker.

Two other caucus members from Texas, U.S. Reps. Brian Babin of Woodville and Joe Barton of Arlington, also came along to support the final version of the bill, which offered enough enticements for some conservatives but not enough for others.

In the end, two Texans held out: Louie Gohmert, of Tyler, a high-profile critic on television, and Randy Weber of Friendswood, who said the final product "simply is not yet good enough."

"I understand the President's frustration," he wrote. "I share that frustration w/ a swamp refusing to repeal Obamacare. I am on board for actual repeal."

Brady calls for unity

While Trump played the bad cop, the architects of the GOP replacement bill, including House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, were trying a more conciliatory approach.

"There are members who have informally reached out to others in an organic way to find out if there are ideas out there where members who could not get to 'yes' have ideas that could get them to 'yes,'" Brady said Thursday.

Brady made clear, however, that while those conversations will continue, "we are turning our attention to tax reform."

Asked about Trump's tweet threatening to go after the holdouts in next year's congressional elections, presumably by running candidates against them in Republican primaries, Brady was circumspect.

"I'm convinced, to do what's right for America and deliver on our promises, we need to unify behind this president," he said. "He's clearly put out and frustrated by what occurred, and he wants, as we do, to deliver on that promise. So, I'm hopeful."

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House Speaker Paul Ryan said he shared Trump's frustration.

"About 90 percent of our conference is for this bill to repeal and replace Obamacare and about 10 percent are not. That's not enough to pass a bill," he said. "We're close, and what we're encouraging our members to do is, keep talking with each other until we can get the consensus to pass this bill. But it's very understandable that the president is frustrated that we haven't gotten to where we need to go."

Barton, the No. 2 Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which had a hand in crafting the bill, made clear in a statement Thursday that despite his earlier misgivings, he is ready to sign on if Republicans try again.

"The Freedom Caucus is working with House Leadership to get to 'yes' on repeal and replace of Obamacare," he said. "Republicans have made a commitment to get rid of this disastrous law and we will not stop until we get there. With the changes incorporated last week, I will vote yes when this bill reaches the House floor."

Infighting continues

White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to say if the president's latest tweet was meant as a threat, saying he would let it "speak for itself." But he alluded to signs that the resistance on the right may be softening. "I think that there's a few members of the Freedom Caucus, both prior to last Friday's vote and since then, who have expressed a willingness to want to work with him rather than necessarily as a bloc. And I think that there continues to be some promising signs with that."

Since last Friday's humiliating setback, Republicans have been looking for ways to restart their halted effort to jettison or rewrite the Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, another conservative critic of the GOP health care bill, sounded a note of optimism Tuesday, telling a Federalist Society gathering that "There are actually a lot of areas of consensus dealing with Obamacare repeal."

Finding that common ground has proven elusive so far, however, as concessions to hard-right conservatives who have dubbed the bill "Obamacare Lite" threaten to push away moderates who worry about rolling back the health care law's protections for the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

Sparks flew between the two camps Thursday amid reports that New York Republican Chris Collins, a member of the moderate "Tuesday Group," had rebuffed direct negotiations with the Freedom Caucus. "If that call comes in," Collins said, "just hang up."

"This is the definition of intransigent," said Michael Needham, chief executive officer of Heritage Action, one of the leading groups pressuring conservatives to reject the GOP health care bill.

'Not a governing move'

It remains unclear what the White House strategy may be in singling out the most conservative members of the Freedom Caucus, given that the 30-member bloc could be pivotal to tax reform and the rest of the GOP agenda.

"It's never politically wise to chastise those you might need," said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. "This is a campaign move, not a governing move. That difference has not been clear to the White House so far."

It also is questionable how much leverage Trump has, given that activist groups in many of these conservative lawmakers' districts remain adamantly opposed to the GOP replacement plan. Gohmert won his deeply conservative district last November with nearly 74 percent of the vote, a few ticks better than Trump, who got 72 percent there. Weber won with nearly 62 percent in a district where Trump garnered 58 percent.

"They have more to fear from their constituents who are committed to those conservative principles, and less committed to governing Trump style," Rottinghaus said. "The problem is that they were put in a position of having to vote on something that has been a challenge for the more conservative elements of the party. Parties have to resolve their differences all the time. But typically it's the case that they would resolve those differences before it comes to a vote. That was the biggest strategic failure here."

Kevin Diaz came to the Houston Chronicle in February 2014 with more than a decade of experience covering Washington. Before that, he was the chief Washington correspondent for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he got his start in journalism in 1984 as a night cops reporter. During his tenure in Minneapolis, he won awards for his coverage of gang crime and city hall. He also taught public affairs reporting at the University of Minnesota, where he received his Master’s. After a stint at the Washington (D.C.) City Paper, Kevin went back to the Star Tribune, where he won national awards for articles on globalization and immigration. He also covered the 9/11 terrorist attacks from Washington and New York. Born and raised in Italy, Kevin has reported from Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba, where he covered Jesse Ventura’s 2002 trade mission. In 2003, he filed daily Iraq War dispatches for McClatchy Newspapers from the U.S. Central Command in Qatar. In 2006, he covered the presidential election standoff in Mexico. He also has covered Washington for the Anchorage Daily News and the Idaho Statesman.